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AIAAIC-1192

Study: ChatGPT mostly gets programming questions wrong

ChatGPT wrongly answers over half of software engineering questions it receives, according to a research study. Purdue University researchers analysed how ChatGPT responded to 517 questions posed on Stack Overflow to assess the correctness, consistency, comprehensiveness, and conciseness of the chatbot's answers using linguistic and sentiment analysis, and by questioning a dozen volunteer participants. The analysis showed that 52 percent of ChatGPT answers are incorrect, and 77 percent are verbose. 'Nonetheless', the researchers said, 'ChatGPT answers are still preferred 39.34 percent of the time due to their comprehensiveness and well-articulated language style.' The paper raised questions about ChatGPT's ability to generate high quality engineering information. System 🤖 ChatGPT Operator: Stack Overflow; OpenAI Developer: OpenAI Country: USA Sector: Technology Purpose: Generate text Technology: Chatbot; Generative AI; Machine learning Issue: Accuracy/reliability

Date it happened
2023-08-01
Organisation involved
Stack Overflow; OpenAI
Product, system or model
ChatGPT
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